The two national parties have certainly traveled rather diverse pathways during the past 30 days.

The Republicans seem to have made up their minds. They've whittled their field of presidential candidates down to a single frontrunner. The only other candidate in the Republican race is expecting a miracle. He's about the only one with such expectations.

As a result of the Republican skirmishes there are a large number of disenfranchised hardcore conservatives. The candidate of the party got there by winning many primary and caucus races by a slim margin. The predominant Republican approach to primaries is "winner-take-all," which is a key reason it already has a champion this early.

The Republican Party's approach to the nomination process has its upsides and downsides. On the upside, the leading nominee already has almost enough delegates to lock up the nomination. Early closure of the nomination process allows the party to start moving forward into the general election campaign sooner. On the down side, there are all those unhappy conservatives.

The Democrats favor the shared delegates approach in their nomination process. Like the Republicans, the Democrats' nomination process has had its upsides and downsides. The biggest downside is the lack of a clear frontrunner. The field has now been cut down to two. Until recently the two leading candidates continued to regularly split both the primary and caucus votes and the corresponding delegates.

In the next couple of weeks we might actually see the former underdog sprint past the former frontrunner. The underdog candidate has now won more states and more committed delegates. However, the other leading candidate has won a smaller number of states but they are the bigger states and this candidate could do the same again in the weeks to come. She had better do it or it is all over for her.

The biggest downside to the Democrats' nomination process could be their convention itself. The Democrats have a considerable number of super delegates, whose job is to break any ties at the convention. These party leaders have weighted votes and thus, the power to break ties.

Think about it. All the high rollers of the party have the power to anoint a candidate. Is this what the entire year of hard work by the most popular Democratic candidate comes down to? We get to watch an anointment on national TV?

Forty years ago, we had an unpopular war under way. We also had some very compelling Democratic candidates in 1968. We lost Robert Kennedy to an assassin in June. Eugene McCarthy was the peoples' popular choice candidate going into the convention. We wound up with Hubert Humphrey as the nominee by the end of that Chicago convention. As a result, Chicago wound up with riots in 1968.

The Democratic nomination process is not boring this time around. In fact, this time the nomination process is very historic. The results could also just as easily be very troubling. These super delegates must be careful in how they use their power. If a candidate gets more votes, wins more states, gathers up more elected delegates and raises more money; shouldn't they be the nominee?

Yes, they very much should be nominated. The Democratic Party leaders need to see that only good politics plays out at their convention this time around. If they don't, they may no longer have much of a party to lead.